British Tories back in the lead.

The Daily Telegraph ^ | 28 November 2003

[tjwmason]

Tories back in the lead with Howard By George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 28/11/2003)

Michael Howard has put the Conservatives back on the map three weeks after taking over as leader from Iain Duncan Smith.

A YouGov poll for The Telegraph today gives them a two-point lead over Labour, with the Liberal Democrats running a poor third.

They enter what is expected to be the last full session of Parliament before a general election in 2005 in a stronger position than at any time since Tony Blair became the Labour leader nine years ago.

[tjwmason]

I realise that Prime Minister Blair is respected in the U.S. for his (correct) stand over Iraq and the War on Terror; however, at home he has been raising taxes, pushing European integration, ripping up our constitution, and ramming regulatory burdens on business.

A revitalised and fighting Tory is wonderful news.

[Dane]

In his first party political broadcast as leader last night, he sought to reassert the Tories' low tax credentials by proposing a new bank holiday to mark the point in the year at which people finish paying the taxman and start working for themselves

That's a great idea. Gives people the day off to think about how much they pay to the taxman.

[Pikamax]

"A revitalised and fighting Tory is wonderful news."

I will believe it when I see it.

[SunkenCiv]

How do these Freepers dig up these old topics?

Being a Tory gets easier by the minute
by Ed Vaizey
Sunday August 24, 2003

The Conservative Party conference in Blackpool in early October should go some way to answer the poser... By the time conference comes around, Iain Duncan Smith will have been Tory leader for just over two years. Duncan Smith is credited by his party with reconnecting the Conservatives with the public's agenda, something that they failed to do in 2001. As one strategist puts it, 'we are now starting to have policies on the issues that keep people awake at night'. Such issues do not include Europe, a subject where Duncan Smith has succeeded in turning down the volume. They do include, though, schools, hospitals and crime... Without having to look at a crib sheet, I can tell you that the Conservatives would abolish tuition fees, make exam bodies independent, put 40,000 more policemen on the street over the next decade, fund 20,000 more drug rehabilitation places, introduce a health passport and tackle the issue of funded pensions with a long-term savings plan... Better still, Government errors are seized on with a little more alacrity. Peter Hain's recent musings on the need to impose even higher taxes on middle-income earners was like the whiff of grapeshot to old Tory dogs. The new-found enthusiasm took me back to the hunger the Tories felt in the 1992 election campaign... A million more people now pay higher rate income tax, and average income families now face the prospect for the first time of an inheritance tax bill, because of rising property prices. The Tory mantra is likely to be that real reform, not higher taxes, means better public services. And better public services can therefore exist with lower taxes.